It has been 10 years since the Disclosure and Barring Service in England and Wales started their work checking criminal records. The Disclosure and Barring Service, or DBS, replaced the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) who handled vetting before 2012. Although it is still fairly common to hear people talking about applying for a CRB check, or waiting for a CRB certificate, this is old terminology. The Disclosure and Barring Service was formerly launched on 1 December 2012, and the new organisation merged the two previous departments of the Criminal Records Bureau and the Independent Safeguarding Authority, or ISA.
Barring Lists
The Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) was responsible for managing the Barred Lists, which were formerly known as List 99. These lists are closely related to criminal records as people who are included on the Barred Lists are there because they have been ordered to have their names included by the court after being sentenced for a crime, usually a violent or sexual one. Someone who is listed on the Barred List referring to children or adults cannot be employed in a position which requires the level of checking which includes a Barred List search. Most people who are added to the Barred List stay on the list for an extended period of several years, and often for life.
DBS Birthday Statistics
As part of the DBS’s tenth birthday celebrations, they have released statistics about how many checks have been processed over the previous decade. Since the DBS started processing criminal records checks at the end of 2012, over 52 million certificates have been issued for basic, standard or enhanced disclosure checks. In the same period, 41,000 people have had their names added to the Barred List for children, adults or both. The DBS issued 1.2 million DBS certificates within the first four months of operation.
In the decade since the DBS started operating, several other changes have been made to the system. Basic DBS checks were introduced in 2017, and in April 2019 the DBS made applications available in Welsh as well as in English. Filtering criteria has changed several times over the decade, with the biggest changes coming in November 2020, ensuring the DBS strikes the balance between protecting members of the general public and allowing people who may have committed a crime in the past to be fully rehabilitated.
Partner Organisations
Disclosure and Barring Service only manages criminal records checks in England, Wales, Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. Due to the differences in legal systems, there are separate organisations for criminal records checks in Northern Ireland and Scotland. In Scotland, applications can be made to Disclosure Scotland through their Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) scheme. In Northern Ireland checks are submitted to AccessNI. The decision about what body to apply to is based on where the applicant lives, not on where the job will be located, or where the employer or voluntary organisation has its headquarters.
